1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a process for producing cooking vinegar and more particularly, to a process for producing novel cooking vinegar which is greatly vitamin C-enriched by acerolas.
Therefore, the present invention is very important not only in ordinary food industries but also in various technical fields of health food, medicines and supplement nutrition food. In addition, the present invention has newly developed a field of utilizing acerolas and is of extremely great significance also in technical fields of horticulture and cultivation.
2. Brief Description of the Prior Art
Cooking vinegar is produced, irrespective of sake wine lees vinegar, rice vinegar, muscovado vinegar, grain vinegar, alcohol vinegar or wine vinegar, by acting an acetobactor on alcohol thereby to perform acetic fermentation. An attempt itself is out of question to add vitamin C susceptible to cleavage due to oxidation or decomposition; its technical problem per se to add vitamin C to cooking vinegar as in the present invention is quite novel and any technical idea of this type does not exist in the prior art.
Further in the present invention, acerolas are utilized as the source for vitamin C. However, acerolas get putrid and are ripened in an extremely short period of time and also for this reason, a manner of their utilization has not been established, much less utilization of acerolas in the technical field of cooking vinegar. Neither the prior art exists with such utilization nor could even one skilled in the art think of.
Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide a process for producing hitherto unknown, ascorbic acid-enriched novel foodstuffs, i.e., ascorbic acid-enriched vinegar products.
In order to achieve the object described above and further in order to enrich vitamin C without injuring any properties principally possessed by cooking vinegar as natural seasoning, natural food and health food, extensive investigations have been made from various aspects of botany, horticulture, crop science, natural chemistry and other aspects, standing on a viewpoint that the only one effective means is to utilize natural matters.
Screening has thus been performed over a wide range with an attempt to make a survey on the most suitable raw materials among natural matters, taking into account various factors of compatibility with cooking vinegar, high vitamin C content, high storability of vitamin C, easy accessibility and simple production. As a result, it has come to discover for the first time that acerolas which are tropical or subtropical fruits successfully cultured also in the Okinawa and Amami islands recently are particularly suited for the purpose of the present invention. As a result of various investigations and researches based on this new discovery, it has been come to accomplish the present invention.